Açai

Açai

The amazing wonder berry out of the amazon, sold into a “healthy” ice bowl that is often served with banana and granola. Of course, there’s a huge heap of sugar in each bowl and I know it’s still a treat. However it’s really hard to find overseas at a reasonable place.

Weigh by the plate restaurants

The concept of paying however much you put on your plate is typical in Brazil. Restaurants offer a buffet where you load as much you like of salad, vegetables, meat dishes on to a plate. Before eating, your plate is weighed and added to your bill. It’s a great way to sample so many Brazilian dishes without ordering a full plate of them. The cost is extremely reasonale and lets you tailor your meal to your diet.

Mate

Mate is the popular hot tea, often served in a traditional drinking cup with metal straws, intended to be passed around and drunk in a communal fashion. I couldn’t help but laugh to see how popular it was, waiting in the security line at São Paulo behind someone who was trying to figure out with the security person how to get both their full cup of mate through the scanning machine without spilling it!

Tropical fruit

It’s always sad to be reminded of how poor the British Isles are when coming to fresh, season produce. You hit another country and everything tastes like they should. I’ve been indulging in plenty of papaya, pineapple, and watermelon during breakfasts. I don’t normally drink juice, but I’m taking the opportunity to enjoy the freshly pressed guava juice too.

Pao de queijo (cheese bread)

Fluffy puffs of cheesy bread. What’s more to say?

Cachaça

Cachaça seems to be the national spirit to drink after, naturally, beer! It’s an essential ingredient to the Caipirinha but this time I’ve already had a taste of a couple of unique brands.

The passion of people

Perhaps it’s the stark contrast to the European winter, but it’s hard to walk a few blocks without seeing couples passionately kissing or warmly hugging each other when they greet each other.

Learning a language is hard. One aspect I appreciate about living in Europe is the wide variety of cultures and languages from different places. I thought it would be useful to post some tips that would have helped me when I first started learning German and discovered over time.

Have a good reason – Learning a language, at least for me, is hard. You are never really done, and there is always something to learn as languages evolve and are used in different places. It is helpful to have a very good reason to learn, something that won’t change over time to help motivate you. I met many people who wanted to move to Germany for job opportunities, for love interests, or just because they really like Germany. Remember this reason to help motivate you.

Register for some structured learning – I signed up for a language class rather late in my learning cycle, and I think it would have helped doing it much earlier. Having a teacher that you like and respect is a key enabler, but the face-to-face time and the structured nature is particularly helpful in the early stages of language learning.

Make use of software tools – There is so much software for learning languages. Classic language learning tools like Rosetta Stone, audio guides like Pimsleur’s are great starts. The internet offers many more options like Duolingo, Memrise and Anki are great tools for helping you build vocabulary. I used lang-8.com to practice my writing skills and recently came across Livemocha.

Make time for unstructured learning – A problem with class-based teaching, or any software system is that you will be limited by the topics and themes previously chosen. It’s nice to have unstructured learning, like reading a magazine, or a website in a topic you are interested in to make it more engaging or to go to a place whether there are other people learning the language where you can practice.

Interact with native speakers – You will learn everyday phrases and slang much faster when you talk with people who are native speakers, and is often not covered in typical language courses.

Practice doing activities you enjoy doing – A lot about language learning is repetition, building vocabulary and practicing until you become fluent. You can make it a lot easier but doing it at the same time as another activity that you enjoy.

Live in the country – Not always possible, but highly recommended. I know a number of people who have taken vacations in countries where they want to develop their language, where they could not live in the country.

Find a tandem partner – A tandem partner is a person who is fluent in the language you are learning and would like to learn you can speak. Where you are not local to the country, you can try remote calls or video conferences with people on the Internet. You can use sites like Tandempartners.org to find matches. A typical arrangement is to spend time talking in one language, and then to swap to the other.

Be okay with not being perfect – I realised that a goal like “speaking German fluently” was a pretty poor goal, because “fluently” isn’t very specific. Although I am comfortable speaking to natives in everyday conversation, I know there will be situations where I do not have the vocabulary or it would take me much longer to explain what I would like to. This happens in every language and it’s okay. So what if I can’t explain situations in medical terms in English. Relating this back to the first point of having a good reason to learn will help you.

Benefit from your investment – Do something with your language skills. Use it when you travel. Use it to surprise a native speaker. Celebrate the fact that you are learning something and this will help you keep learning.

I wasn’t really sure of what to expect coming to Johannesburg. When I hear of Capetown I remember of stories of how tourist friendly and safe it is. Also about how white it is. Yes – that seems to be okay to say when you’re in South Africa.

Johannesburg is a whole other matter. I think I remember hearing stories about people being held at gunpoint at traffic lights for their car and money and several other devastatingly other traumatic stories. It reminds me of some of the things I heard about Brazil. Fortunately reality doesn’t always play out to these stories but until you find yourself in the situation – it’s really hard to know.

I have to say my experience in Jozi (as they call it) has been rather sheltered. I am staying in a hotel in Rosebank, an obviously affluent part of the city and somewhat protected from probably what the “true” South Africa is like. It’s made even more strange by the fact the hotel I am staying in is physically connected to a shopping centre (mall) which is a completely cut off and definitely unrealistic experience of the city.

Our office sits in Braamfontein, a mixed place that during the day is like visiting Hoxton or Dalston during the weekend. Evenings are a whole other matter and is apparently like the rough parts to Dalston. Rejuvenation, hipsters, craft beer, street/weekend markets on one hand and danger, muggings and knife problems on the other. It’s a bit like every big city but probably on the edgier side.

The city is really spread out and the affluent people have their own cars to drive around. There is little public transport and apparently it is quite normal for drink driving (a lot of deaths are caused each year this way). The use of taxis is rather uncommon for the affluent class – as they drive their own cars (sober or not). I have used Uber as a way of getting around and the taxi drivers seem really happy with it after being here for just over a year. It’s definitely easy to use, and has given me a bit more comfort getting into strangers cars that a) I don’t need to give cash, b) there is some electronic trace about where I was/where I am going.

People have been really warm all over and I am definitely adjusting to the local customs. Punctuality isn’t necessarily expected. Despite being neither black nor white, I haven’t had the stares that I might have expected (like the ones I received in India).

I know that I haven’t updated much on this blog, but part of that was because I spent most of 2014 writing on a German blog here where I wrote over 20,000 words in German. Although I could have spent more time writing there, I did spend some effort trying to write decent German instead of just the same German that I was using all the time.

In case you didn’t realise, I spent 2014 living in Berlin where I was trying to learn German. Choosing Berlin as a place to learn German may not be the most obvious choice because you can get by far too easily with English but it had a good balance between being a place where I could learn and practice German and being a very interesting city to explore.

My year in numbers

Without counting Berlin, I visited 29 different cities and with a plan to try to travel mostly within Germany, I think I managed that very well although I still managed to visit Spain, Italy, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary and England outside of those cities.

I wrote over 20,000 words on my German blog and complete in total 20 weeks of German language lessons in three different German courses. I didn’t keep track of the number of books I read but I would have estimated that I read about 20 different books (in German) and a couple more in English. According to Get Pocket, I saved and read 1.2 million words on saved web page articles which they equate to about 26 books.

In the year, I took just short of 24,000 photos (168GB worth) and watched probably 50 or more DVD films (in German). Being a member of the library in Berlin rocks!

Finally I also published my second book (although it’s been in the works for a couple of years).

A bit more detail

Travel

I tried to see a lot of Germany, particularly the parts which would be hard to see or I wouldn’t fly to from the UK. I was really surprised at how diverse the landscape and how varied the German culture is and I really appreciated the cheap bus lines between cities which meant I only took a few flights back to Berlin. In German I visited the following cities: Trier, Karlsruhe, Baden Baden, Heidelberg, Tübingen, Freiburg, Stuttgart, Potsdam, Leipzig, Dresden, Görlitz, Weimar, Jena, Dessau, Hamburg, München, Nürnberg, Fürth, Regensburg. You’ll notice that it hits most of the south-west and west cities since I had already been to cities like Köln, Dusseldorf, and Frankfurt on previous places.

I returned to Barcelona (this time in summer instead of winter) and enjoyed the beaches at Sitges. I spent two visits in Budapest (once for a stag do, and the other before a conference), two visits to London and a few quick trips to Tartu, Tallinn, Rome and Prague. I went sailing for the first time in Croatia (via Split).

Work

Although I had a year off work, I still ended up doing a little bit. Obviously the second book I published is work-related but I also gave a few training courses and talks about work related topics, but I was more than happy to do that. I managed to not check my work email so much, leaving on my “I’ll be back in a year” out of office message to respond to most emails. I really appreciate that most people will never ever get an opportunity to do that.

Self-development

My only big goal in 2014 was to learn German. I had done some self-study before then, and I don’t think that my German was so good. Reading and listening skills were reasonably but with little practice, my writing and reading skills were significantly behind. In the middle of this year, I realised the goal to “be fluent in German” was not very specific simply because there is no strict definition of what “fluent” means. I’m happy to report I’m comfortable interacting with German-speaking people on an every day basis and getting bay in strange situations.

I can trade emails very well and can read (some) novels in German without needing a dictionary by my side.

Final thoughts

I was never sure what it would be like at the end of this year. Coming back to work is similar to the same feeling I had at the start of 2014 and what you might experience as if it was the first day at school. The feeling comes with a mixture of anticipation (for something good), fear (for the unknown) and excitement (for something new).

I’m thankful and grateful that I had the opportunity to do what I did as I realise many people do not. There were so many moments this year which were so different.

My sister and I have visited New York so many times that we have done all of the normal tourist attractions. As such, she wanted to take a trip somewhere else in the States. We had both done Philly and Boston, so our next trip was to Washington DC. We took buses down as they were significantly cheaper than the train and approximately the same sort of time.

I forgot how clean Washington DC looks in winter. A lot of the streets are really wide and with many of the museums being free, are pretty popular with a lot of people. Christmas time meant holiday time and the some of the museums had some really long queues.

We did what most people on their first visit would do including a tour of Capitol Hill, The Library of Congress and the Air and Space Museum that houses many historical artefacts like the Wright Brother’s first plane, or Amelia Airhart’s plane. I highly recommend taking tours of these places as they give you a better sense of the historical events that each place shows and brings your experience to life.

With many of the museums being free, we did pay to go to the Spy Museum, which houses the biggest collection of spy goods (fun, gadgety devices) and, naturally also has a James Bond exhibit. I recommend going early as when we left, the queue to enter exited the building.

We didn’t have a huge amount of time to really explore the city as we stuck mostly to the tourist trail, but I think there are a couple of other areas to explore and you could easily spend a week there visiting museums and different neighbourhoods. I’d definitely go back to check out 14th street a bit more – it’s where there seems to be a bit more of a nightlife and smaller cafes and stores to visit.

Well 2014 is finally upon us, I’m settling into my new flat in Berlin, but wanted to write up about our trip to the states. My sister wanted to visit some relatives in New York and despite being there so many times that all the tourist attractions have been completed (some twice!) we still bit the bullet and went over there.

Although in our last trip, we had visited Brooklyn, we spent this time walking around it a bit more. Williamsburg in particular has developed the last time we were there, and playing the “spot the hipster” game stopped being fun when our tallies got too high. We hadn’t been down to the Brooklyn Promenade before so we visited it for the awesome view of Manhattan’s skyline from a different perspective.

Like many other cities in the world, New York has also adopted the rent a bike scheme. I didn’t notice many people using them and perhaps that’s because the streets don’t have any dedicated space to them and the streets are busy enough with both tourists and other road traffic.

We scouted out a few art houses around the West Village. I loved how they had a massive place, only showing a few pieces whilst others couldn’t seem to have enough. I’m guessing that one piece purchased by someone would be enough to pay for the exorbitant rents.

Our last trips had us visiting post Christmas, so this time it was nice to see the Empire State building all lit up with festive colours, instead of the cycling colours they use to herald in the new year. We were lucky that the weather wasn’t too bad – a couple of days after we left New York had that massive snowstorm that cascaded into a backlog of planes around the country.

Finally we spent Christmas with our extended family (aunts, uncles and cousins) with the newest edition being a photogenic house cat going by the name of Cooper. I was surprised at how friendly the cat was to new people, not being particularly alarmist about us and also very interested in the camera.

We certainly ate a lot, shopped a bit and also took a trip out to Washington that I’ll write up as a separate post.

It’s almost the end of the year, and now is a good time to reveal some plans I have for next year. I am taking the whole year off from work, and I’ll be moving to Berlin for the year. The timing works out well. With work, I get a sabbatical and we negotiated that I could take the rest of the time off (without pay!) and return to work in 2015.

What would you do with 3 months off?

Many people say travel, but I do a lot of travel already and while there will always be places to travel to that I am yet to go to, I always feel the need to do something productive. Instead, I want to try living in Berlin for a year, where I will be hopefully becoming fluent in German.

I will probably post even less often here, where I will be focusing on practicing my German on my new blog here. You can follow “derkua” here but be warned it will be in German.